Customizing your paper's meta tags

Customizing your paper's meta tags

What is a meta tag?

A meta tag is a coding statement in HTML that describes some aspect of your site's content.

What are meta tags used for?

There are several kinds of meta tags, but the most important for search engineindexing are:

the keywords meta tag - lists the words or phrases that best describe the contents of the page

the description meta tag - a brief one- or two-sentence description of the page.

The information that you provide in these two meta tags are used by search engines to index a page so that someone searching for the kind of information the page contains will be able to find it easily.

Your meta tags will always be placed near the top of the HTML in a Web page as part of the heading.

What meta tags (for search engines) are added to your paper by default?

By default, all papers include a description meta tag, which is constructed from the subtitle of your paper if you have added one. If you have not added a subtitle, the description meta tag is created from an extract of your Editor's note. If you have not added an Editor's note, the default description meta tag is "A selection of articles, blog posts, videos and photos recommended by" and your publisher name.

Editing / adding meta tags used by search engines

Keyword meta tag / description meta tag

Pro users may now edit and/or add both the keywords and description meta tags directly in their paper settings.

In the text field, if you've selected "keywords meta tag", enter your list of keywords directly. If you selected the "Description meta tag", enter one or two sentences about your paper.

Click the ADD button.

The meta tag code is automatically added to the <head> section of your paper.

Google domain verification (available for papers on custom domains)

For Pro papers on a custom domain, verifying your domain with Google Search Console helps you monitor and maintain your paper's presence in Google Search results. You don't have to sign up for Search Console for your site to be included in Google's search results, but doing so can help you understand how Google views your site and optimize its performance in search results.